Pac-10 football ratings: A bleak outlook for bowl bids

You have to figure several Pac-10 bowl partners are just a wee bit concerned that they may not have Pac-10 team in the Pac-10 half of the draw. But that’s life with the Pac-10 and its round robin schedule (not to mention one team on probation).

Oregon State (3-3)Status: Needs to win three of its last six. Has four at home, including WSU.Chances: Very good, but needs to beat Cal this week (home) and UCLA next week (road) to avoid any must-win games down the stretch against USC, Stanford and Oregon.

Washington (3-4)Status: Needs to win three of five. After playing Stanford on Saturday, Huskies have three of their last four on the road.Chances: Not good. A loss this week would force the Huskies to win in Eugene or in Berkeley to reach six wins.

Arizona State (3-4)
Status: Needs to win four of five due to having two FCS wins (only one counts toward the six required).Chances: Bleak. Assuming the Devils beat WSU this week, they’d need to win two of three vs Stanford (home), USC (road) and Arizona (road).

Cal (4-3)Status: Needs to win two of five. Three are at home and one of the roadies is WSU.Chances: Excellent. If the Bears do nothing else this season except beat teams from Washington, they’re going bowling. The guess here is that they finish with seven wins.

UCLA (3-4)Status: Needs to win three of five, and three of the five are at home (but not easy: Arizona, Oregon State and USC).Chances: Way below average. There’s a better chance that the Bruins go 0-5 than 3-2 given that they’ve already played WSU.

*** Overview

Current Hotline projections call for the league to have five bowl-eligible teams: Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Cal and Arizona.

That scenario would prevent the league from fulfilling at least one of its bowl commitments (Kraft Fight Hunger).

And if a second BCS berth were created by Oregon jumping into the NCG, then the league would fill only four of its six commitments (vacancies in the Las Vegas and KFH bowls).

To the ratings, which are back after a one-week, realignment-caused hiatus …

1. Oregon (7-0, 4-0) Last week (two weeks ago, actually): 1 Result: Beat UCLA 60-13 Next up: at USC Comment: By far the Ducks’ toughest road test to date, and they didn’t exactly look like NCG material at Arizona State. USC is coming off a bye, just as Stanford was right about this time last year.

2. Stanford (6-1, 3-1)Last week: 3Result: Beat Washington State 38-28Next up: at WashingtonComment: Not much has changed for the Cardinal over the past fortnight, what with a real bye and then a pseudo-bye (WSU).

3. Arizona (6-1, 3-1)Last week: 4Result: Beat Washington 44-14Next up: at UCLAComment: All those decades without any viable options at quarterback, and now the Cats have two.

Utah (7-0)
Result: Beat Colorado State 59-6
Next up: at Air Force
Comment: Utes have done a first-rate job of hammering third-rate teams. The combined record of their seven opponents is a paltry 14-39.

4. USC (5-2, 2-2)Last week: 8Result: ByeNext up: vs. OregonComment: Trojans jumped four spots on strength of the blowout win over Cal and bad losses by teams ahead of them (Washington and ASU).

5. Oregon State (3-3, 2-1) Last week: 2 Result: Bye Next up: vs. Cal
Comment: Mike Riley has owned Jeff Tedford, winning four of the past five. Something tells me this one will be much closer than last year (a 17-point OSU win).

6. Cal (4-3, 2-2)Last week: 6 Result: Beat ASU 50-17 Next up: at Oregon State Comment: Had I done the ratings last week, Cal would have dropped to 8th or 9th following the USC loss, then bounced back up to 6th.

8. Arizona State (3-4, 1-3) Last week: 5 Result: Lost at Cal 50-17 Next up: vs. Washington State Comment: After three in a row on the road — you don’t see that scheduling very often from the conference office — the Devils are finally back home. But will anyone show up to watch? (Update: Please note reader comment below regarding the schedule. It’s a fair point, but had the teams kept the game in its original slot, ASU would have opened league play with back-to-back roadies, which is also unusual.)

Colorado (3-4)
Result: Lost to Texas Tech 27-24
Next up: at Oklahoma
Comment: Good luck with that.

10. Washington State (1-7, 0-5)Last week: 10Result: Lost at Stanford 38-28Next up: at Arizona StateComment: Chances of Cougs escaping the cellar, even if it’s for one week, have improved greatly. If they win a game, I might just put them No. 1 for the heck of it.

Jon Wilner

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I would place Arizona ahead of Stanford at this point in the season. Their wins against Iowa, Cal and Washington along with the close loss to OSU is more impressive than Stanford’s marquee wins against ND, UCLA, USC and 3TD loss to Oregon. Everything else looks about right (aside from the fictitious placement of Utah and their amazing record against really crappy teams.)

“After three in a row on the road — you don’t see that scheduling very often from the conference office — the Devils are finally back home. But will anyone show up to watch?”

To be fair, the reason that ASU played three consecutive conference road games is that the home game versus Oregon was originally scheduled for October 16, but both schools agreed to move the game to September 25 in order to have a bye week closer to the middle of the season.

The Pac-10 office deserves a lot of the grief it gets, but in this case they were “innocent”.

Dumbdonald

I think Stanford is ranked too high. Their schedule is weak. Obviously, Oregon is the #1 team and USC is a quality win, but Notre and Dame and UCLA are not good. Neither are Sac State, WSU or Wake Forest. The Arizona-Stanford game next week should be very interesting…

FarmSkeptic

@Dombdonald – so where would you put Stanford? 6th? 7th? Would you put them behind 2 loss USC who they beat and 3 loss Oregon State?

This week and next week will be telling, but based on the current record, you couldn’t put them lower than 3rd.

CB1

Is it just me or does everyone want to see Utah get their arse handed to them in 2011? Just to prove what everyone has been saying regarding playing in a top conference – you know one with some parity and difficult games against even the bottom dwellers….

art director

“And if a second BCS berth were created by Oregon jumping into the NCG, then the league would fill only four of its six commitments (vacancies in the Las Vegas and KFH bowls).”

If TCU or Utah or Boise qualify for a BCS bowl bid, they would take the place of the Pac-10 champ in the Rose Bowl, rather than a 2nd place Pac-10 team being guaranteed that spot.

If either the Big 10 of Pac-10 team qualifies for the NC, I thought the new rules meant the Rose Bowl has the take the non-AQ team.

mgb

Art Director:

Yes, the Rose Bowl would have to take one of the non-AQ teams if either the Big-10 or Pac-10 are in the NC game. However, if one of the non-AQ teams also qualifies for the NC game, then the Rose Bowl is released from that requirement and can take the next best Pac-10 or Big-10 team as they would have done previously.

FarmSkeptic

I don’t want Utah to get whipped badly next year, but I certainly don’t want them to enter as a dominant force in the conference. And that’s not because I want to be able to point to them as an example of a non-BCS team that had gotten more respect than they deserved (and therefore why teams like Boise shouldn’t get their shot at the NCG), but more because the rest of the country would interpret Utah coming into the league and winning as a sign of weakness for the Pac12, not as a sign of strength for Utah. And that’s bad for business for the league.

Ideally, Utah will take care of business in its non-conference games and have a respectable season in conference, thereby demonstrating they were a good addition to the league competition and that the Pac12 has all around depth.

LairOfTheBear

@CB- I have no enmity towards Utah- they have an impressive recent record against the Pac-12 & that win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl…they clearly qualify to be in the conference.

That said, I think they would be 5-2 this year instead of 7-0 in a bruising Pac-10 schedule week after week. Even so, I’d put odds on them winning the Pac-12 South w/’SC on probation & the rest of the division relatively weak.

“If TCU or Utah or Boise qualify for a BCS bowl bid, they would take the place of the Pac-10 champ in the Rose Bowl, rather than a 2nd place Pac-10 team being guaranteed that spot.

If either the Big 10 of Pac-10 team qualifies for the NC, I thought the new rules meant the Rose Bowl has the take the non-AQ team.”

If Oregon plays for the title then either Boise or TCU will be slotted for the Rose Bowl. However, if either Boise or TCU makes it to the title game against Oregon, then the Rose Bowl can take another Pac 10 team as an at-large. Also don’t discount the Fiesta Bowl taking a 2-loss Arizona or 1-loss Stanford.

AtticusDuck

And the Wilner Duck bashing continues, to wit: “… they didn’t exactly look like NCG material at Arizona State.” What’s your point? That game was several weeks ago. Since then the Ducks have pummelled Stanford and UCLA. How NC worthy did Auburn look in its myriad of close games this year? Or for that matter, how did BSU look against La Tech. If anyone didn’t see the game, and is just looking at the final score (BSU blowout), La Tech had numerous chances to make a game out of it but Sonny Dykes blew it.

So Jon, after the Ducks thump USC, how will you justify ranking the Ducks outside of the top 2, as you have done all season? It will be interesting to see your creative writing this Sunday.

Cheers

Pac 10 fan

@atticus Duck- what our dear Pac 10 writer here is missing, also is the fact that Chip Kelly and the coaching staff purposely ran a very bland offense againts ASU not giving the Stanford coaches much film to go off of.

Oregon knew they could win there first 4 games doing nothing special, and surprised Stanford with 2 plays that were devastating in that game. The Darron Thomas keeper around the ends, totally taking advantage of Stanford focusing on the running backs. D Thomas 122 gashing yards threw the Stanford d. and the option to keep the ball and throw to Maehl and Dj Davis streaking on the angle routes that led to blown coverage and 2 embarrassing TD’s on Stanford’s defense.

The first 4 games of the Season were a trap and Jimmy Harbaugh was caught and beaten with cruelty.

Its all a chess game and Kelly is really good.

Hal

I don’t know what you are talking about: “Oregon didn’t exactly look like NCG material at Arizona State? ” ASU played tough at Wisconsinn and Oreogn is on the road. Do you think the NCG meterial should crash everyone else and not to say a good pac-10 team?

Hal

I don’t know what you are talking about: “Oregon didn’t exactly look like NCG material at Arizona State? ” ASU played tough at Wisconsinn and Oreogn is on the road. Do you think the NCG meterial should crash everyone else and not to say a good pac-10 team? What a poor judgement from you?

Broncoboss

If Boise state and TCU, or Utah qualify for a BCS Bowl I certainly hope the bowl committee has the guts to make sure they don’t play each other…Give Boise State or TCU or Utah a chance to play one of the big boys..Last year the bowl committee was afraid so the put BSU & TCU against each other so they wouldn’t spoil their little BCS party!

OT

@Hey Broncoboss:

The Smurfs made too many mistakes against La Tech on Tuesday. I am sure that the voters all noticed.

If Michigan State were to win at Iowa, Missouri were to win at Nebraska, and Auburn were to win at Mississippi, I expect the voters to knock the Smurfs down to #5 in both polls.

I also would not be surprised if the voters were to move Utah ahead of the Smurfs if Utah were to win at Air Force, beat TCU at home, and win at Notre Dame in the next 3 Saturdays.

The Smurfs could finish 12-0 and still end up in the Humanitarian Bowl if the following were to happen:

1. Oregon runs the table and goes to the BCS Championship Game

2. Auburn runs the table and goes to the BCS Championship Game

3. Michigan State goes to the Rose Bowl either undefeated or with one loss (Rose Bowl must take Michigan State with one loss instead of Ohio State with one loss due to its “no-repeat” tiebreaker in case the two teams did not play each other during the Big Ten regular season.)

4. Utah leapfrogs the Smurfs in the BCS Standings and claim the Rose Bowl berth.

5. Both the Big 12 and the Big Ten have brand name teams in the Top 10, i.e. Ohio State with one loss and Oklahoma or Nebraska with 2 losses, that will be selected by the Sugar and Orange Bowls as at large teams.

The Fiesta Bowl would be stuck with the Big 12 Champ against the Big East Champ.

The Smurfs would be left out of the BCS and be stuck in the Humanitarian Bowl with a 12-0 record and a #5 or #6 ranking.

@Bronco boss…..As much as I would like to see Boise play “a big boy”. I don’t think the Big Boys will go for it, that is the big conferences. It will be another Boise vs TCU or Utah blah, blah, blah

Higher tv advertising for the Big Ten, Pac 10 and the Almighty SEC…and unfortunately the Mt West is still and will continue to be the WAC’s big bad brother and not the adult (Conference) they want and should be.

This week in the WAC: SJS 32 NMSt 15

Broncoboss

OT,
You’re like god! You know everything (you think)…I never read such a messed up post like your #15..You have way too much time on your hands and apparently “no life”..Yes, Boise State was a litlle sloppy vs LA Tech, but all great teams have some sloppy wins..BSU has won their last 21 consecutive games including a BCS Bowl win so it is only predictable that some games are not played flawless..It’s hard to make every win a mistake free win..Michigan State, Missouri, & Auburn will lose a game this year-Not sure about Oregon..Anyway if Boise runs the table it will be hard to ignore them..You think you have all the answers, but most of your posts demonstrate that you have “no clue”! You just keep spouting a bunch of gobbly-gook!!!

CB1…YES, it IS “just you!” Utah is a very good team in a pretty good conference with TCU, Air Force and BYU (a little down this year). And they have some tough games a coming for the remainder of this season. I don’t know if they go undefeated…but, I hope so. If not, they will get a pretty good bowl game unless finish with too many loses.

In addition, I do expect them to come in to the Pac-12 and compete right away for the Southern Division title and be a very representative addition to the Pac-12 Conference. Over the last few years, in particular, Utah has been a very solid program. I expect them to be a force in our conference from year one, unlike the other addition Colorado.

Broncoboss

Sorry OT, You’re not clueless just a little “Football Knowledge Challenged!” Posting a bunch of ramblings doesn’t hide your “football challenged” fact…Please continue your posting-it adds a great deal of humor to this blogging site..Have a good one!